Born and raised in Los Angeles, Richard Misrach first began to photograph western landscapes as an undergraduate at Berkeley. In the late 1970s, he began traveling extensively in the American West with a large-format camera to make beautiful and technically precise photographs of the landscapes.
For this triptych, Misrach traveled to the Navajo and Chuska volcanic fields in New Mexico to capture the rock formation Shiprock, which plays a significant role in Navajo religion, myth, and tradition.
Created from a volcanic eruption over 30 million years ago, Shiprock is shown in Misrach’s images as a majestic if distant presence, alone in the center of a sparse landscape.
The three photographs — taken at intervals over the course of the day — emphasize both the actual passage of time and the sense of timelessness conjured by such natural monuments.
Watch Misrach speak about his desert photography in this brief video:
